Commentary

A culture of free speech 1

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged censorship liberty on by

Freedom of speech has a cultural dimension as well as a legal one. Legally, it means that the government must not punish people for their expression, except when it violates the rights of others (e.g., clear threats). Cultural respect for free speech is also important. Where it exists, people have room to express their opinions, even when most people disapprove of them. If it goes away, legal protections for free speech are likely to follow.

Cultural freedom of speech doesn’t mean an obligation to grant a platform or to refrain from criticism. The best way to describe it is going after ideas rather than people when possible. Saying that an idea is horrible is one thing. Saying that the person who said it horrible is a stronger charge and can do more damage. This doesn’t mean we should never condemn people for what they say, but it should be reserved for the most serious cases.
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Rebranding censorship as “accountability”

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged censorship Kamala Harris Twitter on by

In an article attempting to show that Kamala Harris didn’t call for shutting down X, an AP “Fact Focus” article inadvertently shows that she is an advocate of censorship. (As is Trump, but that’s for a different article.) It shows that a particular claim — that an old video by Harris “has threatened to censor both X and Musk” — is inaccurate, but it uses this to cast a shade over the fact that Harris has called for censorship of social media. The article goes on to quote that call verbatim:

The same rule has to apply, which is that there has to be a responsibility that is placed on these social media sites to understand their power. They are directly speaking to millions and millions of people without any level of oversight or regulation, and that has to stop.

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AI Panic and NaNoWriMo

This entry was posted in Commentary Writing and tagged AI computers nanowrimo software writing on by

This has been the year of panic over artificial intelligence. It will take over our jobs! It will replace journalism, fiction writing, and maybe even songwriting! This panic has shown up in reactions to a measured statement by the board of National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo. Three members of the board have resigned over the statement.

It begins: “NaNoWriMo does not explicitly support any specific approach to writing, nor does it explicitly condemn any approach, including the use of AI.” That’s not a very tactful way to start, I’ll grant; it could easily be read as endorsing the use of a computer to write your work for you. A clarification was added after the first paragraph, saying, “We also want to make clear that AI is a large umbrella technology and that the size and complexity of that category (which includes both non-generative and generative AI, among other uses) contributes to our belief that it is simply too big to categorically endorse or not endorse.”
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There’s nothing wrong with these expressions

This entry was posted in Commentary Writing and tagged usage vocabulary writing on by

I’ve written a lot of posts on the misuse of words and expressions. For balance, I should mention some that pedants object to, but I don’t. (“Pedant” is defined as someone who objects to usages I don’t object to.)

“I could care less.” The pedant says this should be “I couldn’t care less.” Don’t you understand irony? This is always uttered in a sarcastic tone, and it means something like “I could care less — if I really tried hard.” Do you also object to saying “Big deal!” to dismiss something unimportant?
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Please don’t spread misinformation 2

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged ethics Internet on by

Someone I know posted an alleged quotation from J. D. Vance. Most of it was a real quotation, but the last sentence was made up. It proposed something which I don’t think Vance or any other major candidate has proposed. I didn’t think it was much more bizarre than what he has actually proposed. Since it had no attribution, I tried looking it up. It didn’t take long to establish that if Vance had ever said the last sentence, it wasn’t in that context. I replied that it was fake news, assuming that the poster had picked it up from somebody else.

He responded that the supposed quotation was a joke, and his referring to Vance as “Jack Daniels Vance” was supposed to make that clear. It didn’t for me, and I think it wouldn’t have for many other people. It’s common on the Web to make mocking alterations in people’s names while saying true things about them.
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